PEER RESPONSE MODULE 6

INSTRUCTIONS

Review the posts below of my classmates. Give them feedback on their research and assessment of their ANCOVA or two-way ANOVA choice.

What would you recommend they consider for a third variable and how it might change their test choice?

(CARLA)

As a Reading Specialist for a Central Florida high school, I am often asked which college admissions test (American College Test {ACT} or Scholastic Aptitude Test {SAT}) is easier or better suited for a particular demographic group (demographics such as African-American (AA) students- male and female) to gain entrance into a post-secondary institution. Many critics have argued that underrepresented minority groups score lower on the SAT (Anderson, 2019).  Therefore, I would like to research (null hypothesis) how successful are AA students’ (performance level) on the SAT?  

I will conduct a two-way ANOVA test. The independent variables are AA students (male and female), and the dependent variable is SAT scores. I will add another factor-variable which will be ACT scores. This research will significantly assist high schools and universities in providing appropriate academic level programming (strategies) to help AA students in graduating from high school-- ensuring successful admission scores for persisting in college. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing stated standardized test(s) breed barriers for minority students such as racial, gender, socio-economic class, and cultural differences (Anderson, 2019).

I believe conducting a two-way ANOVA will aid in answering and supporting my research question for the dissertation. Huck (2012) asserted when researchers applied the principles of the two-way ANOVA testing, research question (s) were more likely to be answered distinctly to aid researchers in supporting or rejecting the null hypothesis.

(JANET)

A challenge for higher education institutions is the inability to rely on government funding to function optimally. As funding decrease, tuition increase, and one way for colleges to compensate is to raise tuition. Unfortunately, when costs increase, this adversely affects minority low-income families resulting in a decrease in college enrollment (Zumeta, Breneman, Callan, & Finney (2012). 

The research that would be of interest would be the relationship between college enrollment and affordability. The dependent variable would be college enrollment, and the independent variables would be students with student loans, and students receiving financial aid. The third variable added would be the students’ Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) score. This test is used to assess how prepared for college high school students are. It is instrumental in the amounts of financial aid and student loans students receive. It also helps colleges decide on admission and course enrollment. (The Princeton Review, 2019). The purpose of adding this variable would be to see if a relationship exists between students’ test scores and financial awards and if that increased college enrollment.

An ANCOVA would be selected, which Huck (2007) asserts is superior to the ANOVA (p.345). The ANCOVA is able to make inferences about the study’s effect and can reduce the error of accepting the null hypothesis when it should be rejected. Adding the SAT scores as a covariate would also give credence to the statistics resulting from the study (Huck, 2007).